Chapter 36: Supernatural World (5)

The process of refining ghosts was extremely cruel. It was almost like the celestial master had to flay a person alive, cutting the body into several pieces while performing Daoist arts—on one hand, ensuring the soul didn’t dissipate or enter the underworld, and on the other, harnessing the material’s pain, resentment, and baleful energy to temper the ghost’s spirit until the ritual was complete. This was indeed a grave sin against karmic virtue—no wonder Lin Jiayang died so young.

Lin Yuetian removed his shirt and lay on the floor. The surrounding formation was meticulously drawn, subtly aligned with the principles of the Eight Trigrams. Eight formation points were anchored with cinnabar talismans. His breathing was calm as he watched Lin Tongzhao secure his limbs to prevent any struggle. Lin Tongzhao’s expression twisted, his breath heavy, as if hesitating to proceed.

“Uncle,” Lin Yuetian suddenly asked, “you’ve used ghost refinement before, haven’t you?”

Lin Tongzhao’s breath hitched before he let out a bitter laugh. “How did you figure that out?”

“No matter what, this is still murder,” Lin Yuetian said evenly. “It’s odd that you were so easily convinced by just a few of my words. That’s why I guessed—you’re not as distant from ghost refinement as you claim to be.”

Lin Tongzhao swallowed hard and said in a low voice, “Sharp eyes, Nephew… When I was fifteen, my branch of the Lin family was even more destitute than it is now. My father died young, leaving behind nothing but debt. My mother later worked herself to exhaustion and ended up in the hospital. I had a younger brother, only five years old, who still needed to go to school. Our relatives weren’t doing any better. Perhaps it really was our ancestor’s loss of karmic virtue bringing misfortune upon his descendants.

“I was desperate. If things continued that way, my mother and brother would have starved to death. Before my father passed, he said I had a talent for Daoist arts and taught me feng shui, face reading, and the only profound Daoist technique our family hadn’t lost—ghost refinement. I sought out an old friend of my father’s, a businessman who had just started making a name for himself. My father had given him a fortune reading when he was starting out. Later, when my mother fell ill and I went to borrow money from him, he refused to lend even a single yuan…”

Lin Tongzhao seemed lost in distant memories as his hands continued moving. He lifted a bowl of raw rice, using a pair of chopsticks that had been used in Qingming ancestor offerings to mix the rice with incense ash and his own tongue-tip blood. He scattered the mixture within the formation, writing the words “Peace” and “Life & Death,” each weighted down with copper coins and pine branches.

“I told him I was willing to refine ghosts for him—to eliminate his business rivals and create wealth-attracting ghost servants,” Lin Tongzhao continued. “He immediately lent me the money and later brought me several death-row inmates to work on… I did it three times. But none of those ghosts lasted long. Later, when he went on a business trip, he got into a car accident—his body was torn to pieces.

“I survived, but in the end, my mother still passed away. When my brother was ten, he suddenly developed a high fever and died within days. That’s when I realized… this really does bring karmic retribution. But I’ve lived alone until now. Perhaps one day, the consequences of my past will catch up to me, but at this point, it doesn’t matter anymore. If I can at least destroy the Jade Ghost and settle our ancestor’s karmic debt, then my life won’t have been wasted… Haha, wouldn’t you say so?”

Lin Yuetian silently watched as Lin Tongzhao finished setting up the formation, then turned to perform three bows before the statues of the Three Pure Ones. He also quietly watched as Lin Tongzhao submerged the short blade in clear water, then removed it and began sharpening the edge.

The system had been silent for a long time. But at this moment, it suddenly shouted in Lin Yuetian’s mind, “Stop it!”

“The arrow is already on the bowstring. Stop what?” Lin Yuetian even smiled, his voice gentle and comforting.

The system sounded panicked. “Just stop! Really, stop… You—you don’t actually have to go this far. I never told you this, because you always scare me half to death, but even if you fail a mission or two, you actually—”

“Don’t tell me,” Lin Yuetian interrupted.

The system was so anxious it sounded like it was about to cry. “No, you really don’t have to do this! Just complete the mission the traditional way, okay? Even if it’s slower, it’s fine. I’m not in that much of a rush. Even if my performance metrics suffer, it’s fine. Even if you have to sacrifice your looks, I won’t laugh at you! I swear! Just please, don’t go this far! Do you even know what ghost refinement entails?! They’re going to flay you alive—it’s too painful, too horrifying!”

“I know all of that. But do you know why I’ve been able to complete so many missions? Why I was a top-tier assassin?” Lin Yuetian asked.

The system struggled to follow his logic. “…Because of your professional skills?”

Lin Yuetian nodded in satisfaction. “Good, you’re teachable. Now, do you know the key components of my professional skills?”

“It’s not the time for jokes!” The system watched Lin Tongzhao sharpening the blade and felt like its nonexistent stomach was twisting into knots.

“It’s my intelligence,” Lin Yuetian continued, undeterred by the system’s lack of cooperation. “And my boldness. Whether in my original world or in every mission world I’ve entered, I’ve always told myself—I only have one chance. To complete my mission, I’ll sacrifice anything. That’s my work ethic.

“I’m not a god, nor do I consider myself exceptionally strong-willed. If you tell me the exact consequences of mission failure—like if I wouldn’t actually die—then even though my intelligence wouldn’t be affected, my do-or-die mentality would change. Without the resolve to take bold risks, I might succeed this time, or I might fail. Perhaps it wouldn’t matter much in the short term, but over time, I’d become less and less willing to try the most efficient methods. I’d start failing more and more. I don’t hate failure, but I’m not used to it—and I don’t want to get used to it.”

Lin Yuetian said, “Leaving no escape route for myself, refusing to allow failure—that’s my creed as a top-tier assassin.”

The system fell silent.

Lin Tongzhao finished sharpening the blade and walked toward Lin Yuetian. His expression was complicated. Lin Yuetian could see the bright, icy glint of the knife reflecting in the light.

“There’s still time to regret this,” Lin Tongzhao said with reluctance. “You only have one life. Maybe there’s another way—even if we don’t have one now, perhaps… perhaps we’ll find one.”

“Do it,” Lin Yuetian said.

“Life only happens once. Being human and being a ghost are ultimately different.” Lin Tongzhao gritted his teeth. “Even the ruthless Jade Ghost only wants to become human. You should reconsider—really think it through.”

Lin Yuetian smiled at him calmly, his tone gentle. “Do it.”

Lin Tongzhao let out a long sigh. He gripped the short knife and chanted an incantation in a loud voice—first giving thanks to the Three Pure Ones, then to the principles of heaven and earth, and finally to the ghosts and demons of the four directions. With every line he recited, a faint darkness seemed to gather around his forehead.

In truth, from the first moment Lin Yuetian and the system had seen Lin Tongzhao, they could tell he wouldn’t live much longer. And of course, Lin Tongzhao himself was likely aware of it too. But to him, death was frightening, and living was equally meaningless.

Lin Tongzhao let out a loud shout and scattered more than a dozen yellow talismans. The moment they landed on the formation, they ignited into flames on their own. Lin Yuetian seemed to hear the sound of wailing ghosts, but he didn’t close his eyes. He watched, cold and unwavering, as Lin Tongzhao raised the short knife. He stared at the gleaming blade—

And then, the knife fell onto his chest.

The system didn’t chant scriptures, nor did it play any mood-setting background music. It simply remained silent. Only at this moment did it truly realize the nature of the person it had contracted with—someone who was, through and through, devoid of empathy, indifferent even to himself. A monster. A lunatic. A patient beyond saving.

Of course, Lin Yuetian didn’t think of himself that way.

He felt pain, of course, but he considered it a reasonable price to pay for getting the job done.

Lin Yuetian had always believed he was perfectly normal.